Titanium Sponge Plant
Titanium Sponge Plant is an Indian manufacturing plant that produces titanium sponge, a material widely used in aeronautics, light defence vehicles, and other applications. It is located at Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd, Chavara, Kollam district of Kerala. Notably, It is the only plant in the world that carries out the entire aerospace-grade titanium sponge manufacturing process under one roof.
History
The importance of establishing domestic titanium production was realised due to India's significant demand for titanium and magnesium alloys, which were predominantly imported from countries such as China, Russia, and Japan. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, a scientist and the former President of India, highlighted the issue in a speech at the Kerala Legislative Assembly. The plant was fully commissioned in August 2015.Establishment
The successful implementation was achieved after about twenty years of continuous research by the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory. The project is funded by Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.Ranking
India is the seventh country in the world to have such a complex structured TSP which has the technology to make titanium sponge, and the first to have done the entire process under one roof in an indigenous manner. The company, Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd., has also won awards for commercialising this technology.Design and capacity
The plant has an intricate design to carry out manufacturing of titanium alloy wrought products and fabrication of hardware. Titanium sponge is an alloy product that is produced through the Kroll process, which includes leaching or heated vacuum distillation to make the metal almost 99.7% pure.Work is being done actively to increase the capacity of the TSP for the proposed 10000 TPY. A memorandum of understanding has also been signed by the KMML with Steel Authority of India for a joint venture to prepare titanium sponge at large scale.
India has the third-largest reserves of Titanium containing minerals and was the sixth-largest country in Titanium production in 2013. However, the high purity Titanium sponge as raw material is still imported for aerospace applications from countries like Japan, Russia, and China. Using the indigenously made titanium sponge, VSSC realized the aerospace-grade alloy, having formula Ti6Al4V, at Mishra Dhatu Nigam in Hyderabad.